political impact
Kennedy in front of joint session
The idea of spending billions of dollars on going to the moon and launching satellites caused many meeting and speeches to congress, and many people petitioning for the government to stop investing in space exploration. Many petitions against the spending on NASA were circulated by engineers, technicians, scientists, etc. that enjoy their current position and do not want to leave it. JFK needs all the people he can get to help in space exploration rather then their current positions, so he has to move both unemployed and happily employed engineers, technicians, etc. to different positions, causing petitions to flow in. Congress also played a very big part in the space race. JFK and his associates had to propose several bill to congress in order to create NASA and make serious space exploration possible. If the legislation had not been passed, then the Soviets would have almost indefinitely gained a huge lead on America and possibly won the space race, so congress played a big role in the space race when they made the decision to pass the legislation. Congress also played a big role when they approved the increase in NASAs budget by 500x. That decision opened doors to being able to fund a Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo program, Weather tracking satelites, etc. would not have been possible without congress signing off on it.